Sportsbet CEO Cormac Barry has commented that the online gambling industry is not as harmful to problem gamblers as land-based gaming is. Barry was speaking at the federal inquiry into interactive and online gambling and gambling advertising and the Interactive Gambling and Broadcasting Amendment (Online Transactions and Other Measures) Bill 2011. He said that the use of third-party verification software combined with intelligent analytics software means online gambling offered more security against problem gambling.
Barry commented, “There are occasions where people will try and open a second or third account to try and get more money on — customers have limits on how much they can bet on each selection — so we run real-time matching software that will pick out common characteristics with similar accounts and that will flag and alert to our fraud team,” he said.
“The same would apply with people who have self-excluded — if they try to open a new account with the same email address or phone number or used a different address, the software would pick it up and the account would be suspended by the fraud team.
“The efforts that have been made by the online gambling industry are considerably more sophisticated than other areas of the gambling industry.”
In some quarters, of which we are very welcoming, being able to gamble has been pointed to as something that is beneficial to most. Dr Patrick Basham commented, “a taste for risk is essential for human development. Entrepreneurship and risk-taking have always been essential parts of a progressive society and a progressing society.”
That is something that many politicians in Australia don’t like the sound of. Everyone needs fun in his or her lives though. Whether it is online or land-based.
